The Invention of Everything Else - Samantha Hunt

In theory I shouldn't have liked this as much as I did, as it combines two features that I normally find offputting: a fictional account of a real person (Nikola Tesla, the inventor of AC electric power) and elements of fantasy. Despite this, I really enjoyed it, perhaps because I knew nothing of Tesla's life beforehand and the fantasy passages were presented as subjective, in keeping with the opinion attributed to Tesla that "every time you dismiss aspects of this world as somehow supernatural, you are dismissing the wonder due this world".

The novel is a celebration of imagination, curiosity and possibility in a world where people are "so mesmerized by technology that they are no longer even curious enough to try to discover where the electricity they love comes from". The young woman Louisa was a very engaging character, and the story made me want to find out more about Tesla and also Mark Twain / Sam Clemens. A phrase from the book has stayed with me: "strands of coincidence that are like a piece of lace holding the world together exactly as it is in this second here".

The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt

A big dense saga about the complex intertwined lives of several families, stretching from 1895 to the aftermath of the First World War. This demanded concentration but richly rewarded it, as it seamlessly blended social and cultural history with a gripping novel about tangled relationships, betrayals, and the unintended and often tragic outcomes of trying to reconcile ideology and aesthetics with personal relationships.

The Birth House - Ami McKay

A novel based around one of my current favourite topics: childbirth. Set in a remote part of Nova Scotia in the early years of the twentieth century, the book follows the life of a young girl learning traditional midwifery from the local wise woman, and continuing to practice it in the face of increasing opposition from the doctor who attempts to replace her with a commercial medical facility in a nearby town. The traditional midwives are portrayed as sympathetic characters, acting out of love and knowing the circumstances of the women who come to them for help, and the folk remedies they offer are shown to have a kernel of effective power buried in the supersition & rituals. The doctor, on the other hand, is portrayed as aggressive and de-humanising, interested only in the moment of (sterile, controlled) birth and not offering ante-natal care or interested in the impact of the birth experience on the mother's recovery or bonding with her child. While I have much sympathy with this view, I found it a little overstated - my own opinion is that both approaches are valid and the real tragedy of the story is in the failure of the two to communicate and share knowledge, rather than in the medicalisation of birth. (I was fortunate myself to experience care from compassionate midwives within a medical context, which allowed for a swift & effective intervention using modern medical techniques when required - I truly feel that I experienced the 'best of both worlds' and that this should be the ideal.) A couple of other points that caught my attention: the revelation that the vibrator was originally developed as a remedy for 'hysteria'(!), and the description of married life for many women as an inexorable series of babies arriving under harsh circumstances, resulting in moral dilemmas for midwives approached for help by women desperate to prevent or 'lose' pregnancies.

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga

A darkly funny fictional autobiography showing the violent consequences of the emergence of a "half-baked" caste of partly educated men whose ambitions are thwarted by institutionalised inequalities and endemic corruption in Indian society. It is really disturbing in places - I was horrified by the price at which the narrator's freedom has been bought. There are also some fascinating contradictions - his violent rage is brought on, not by the casual harshness with which he is accustomed to be treated, but by the glimpse of a different way of looking at his situation offered by his employer's wife's obvious feelings of guilt towards him. The final anecdote, showing how he has shaped a different future while working within the corrupt system, is particularly brilliant and thought-provoking.

Consequences - Penelope Lively

I loved this book. It was the first novel I found time to read after my baby daughter was born, and the clear understated writing style had a soothing and calming effect which fitted my mood perfectly while being absolutely captivating and transporting me to the times and places being described. It lived up to its own description of "the function of books", from the musings of a young girl working in a library:

That is the function of books: they offer a point of view, they offer many conflicting points of view, they provoke thought, they provoke irritation and admiration and speculation. They take you out of yourself and put you down somewhere else from whence you never entirely return.

This is essentially a family saga, written as a collection of short descriptive passages capturing significant, or everyday but revealing, moments in a manner which sometimes resembles a collage or photograph album more than a linear narrative. The shifts of focus between the generations are handled smoothly and draw your affections and interest along with them, and all of the characters are distinctive and likeable. The main theme of the book is the impact of chance meetings and extreme choices on the lives of generations...

"More provocative was the erratic process whereby you went in one direction rather than another, did this, not that, lived here, not there, found yourself with this person and not someone else quite unknown, quite inconceivable. How did this come about? Oh, you made choices, but in a way that was sometimes almost subliminal, at others so confused that, in recollection, the area of choice is obscured entirely: what was it that was not chosen? And, sometimes, choice is not an option."

Reading this as a new mother with my own mum staying with me at the time I was also struck by the comment that:

"When Ruth became a mother she had the universal, unexceptional, hackneyed revelation - she perceived her own mother differently."

All in all, the perfect first book for me as a new mother :)

Tribe - Bruce Parry (with Mark McCrum)

An interesting account of the experiences behind the recent TV series where Parry spent a month at a time living with 15 different remote communities around the world. I enjoyed some of the 'behind the scenes' material - such as initial misunderstandings where his hosts did not understand his determination to share their lifestyles and assumed that he was sharing the rich feasts that his crew were having in their tents. I was also fascinated by the reflections on ethical issues such as the impact of the filming & associated gifts on the host communities, and most challengingly, Parry's conclusions about the inappropriateness of passing judgement on traditional practices, even ones as extreme as cannibalism, the ritual whipping of women, or female circumcision.

This book did leave me a little confused, however - if the book could be described as the 'making of...' for the TV series, it left me wanting to go back another level and read a 'writing of...' for the book, because the thing that I found most compelling about the book was Parry's 'voice', his frequent self-examination and reflection on the process and impact of the filming, and so I couldn't help but become extremely curious about what this meant when there was clearly a ghostwriter involved - how much of this voice was authentic? (In Parry's thanks section at the end he thanks the writer for putting up with him being an "insufferable control freak" which seemed promising!)

The Best a Man Can Get - John O'Farrell

One I wouldn't normally have picked up, but I felt like something light & it came recommended, so I gave it a try, and was glad I did as I found myself laughing out loud all the way through it. The story itself, about a young father whose secret double life as an unencumbered bachelor is starting to unravel, plays out fairly predictably for the most part (one section did take me completely by surprise & make me laugh even harder, but this was balanced by the next "twist" being really predictable), but the writing style - full of genuinely funny one-liners - makes this well worth a read.